


apathy art

by aetherae



Category: Kara no Kyoukai | The Garden of Sinners
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-03
Updated: 2012-05-03
Packaged: 2017-11-04 18:23:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetherae/pseuds/aetherae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The long awaited homecoming isn't much of a homecoming. (Set after KNK4, though if I remember correctly, this sort of event never even happens... Oops.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	apathy art

The walk up to her house is a slow one, and it’s hard concentrating on something other than the death of it all. She sees rocks splitting apart, bamboo leaves withering into dust. Touko Aozaki, her “therapist” on paper and new teacher in truth, walks cheerfully despite the atmosphere set by the servants seeing her home.  
  
Home, apparently. She feels nothing at the thought of it, nothing at the sight of it.  
  
Once they reach the entranceway, the other woman is mentioning to an attendant of things to take care of, “Make sure she answers with full sentences instead of short ones!” and “Don’t be too surprised if she’s confused, amnesia is very difficult to deal with!” Shiki watches, watches carefully at how the limbs of them all rot and bleed without even a single touch, without even the lines—  
  
Touko is giving her a knowing glance, lasting only a moment, but breaks into her ridiculously cheerful smile once again. “Bye~ now! I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon, Shiki-san.”  
  
She walks off with a wave as Shiki is led inside, and she can only wonder how “soon” soon will be.  
  


◆

She tunes them out mostly, these strangers she’s supposed to call family. Her house feels more like a prison than a home, and it’s clearer than ever that she doesn’t understand how to be “herself”. The self that died when her other half died, because something made empty could never become whole again.

The floorboards creak with a familiar groan; the sound startles her like she’s heard it for the first time. Akitaka slides open the door to her room, unchanged for these past two years, but she can’t feel a single sense of belonging there. It’s an alien place, this old house covered in bamboo groves. Even that chase in the rainy night, the one so long ago—the one she can’t remember completely—feels like a memory from another person.

It’s during dinner she decides, strained and awkward as it is.

“I’m not staying here.”

Her voice feels strange in her own throat, like she doesn’t remember how to talk. Of course she does, but there’s something else she can’t quite figure out—her tone of voice, what words to pick. She comes out half-formal and half-casual, mixing verb forms and pronouns. If that wasn’t enough to make her so-called parents stare at her in confusion, her statement by itself is.

There are protests, of course, for the heir and only daughter of the Ryougi family can’t be allowed to just do as she pleases, she should focus on recovering more, she has training to catch up on, the excuses and reprimanding piles on top of each other, so much that she leaves her dinner half-eaten to return to her foreign room. By night she grabs the only thing she feels any attachment to, a red leather jacket coated with dust from age, and walks out into the dark.  
  
She has no memory of it, but somehow, the city lights in the darkness feel familiar to her.  
  


◆

One way or another, she ends up in a dilapidated building that looks like it could crumble from age. Touko calls it her office. Somehow, Shiki isn’t too surprised.

“What, you don’t even want to stay at your own house? How cruel of you to be like that to the family that’s been waiting for you for all these years.” There’s a laugh at the end of that though, and Shiki’s pretty sure she has no need to explain herself.

“So? What do you plan on doing now?”

“Dunno,” she replies, rolling over on the couch she’s taken the liberty of lounging on. She’s still not sure of why her way of speech is going all over the place, but she goes with it for now. “Definitely not going back there though.”

There’s a sing-song sort of hum over above her, and when Shiki looks up, it’s Touko leaning over. “I think I have just the plan then. You’ll have to skip out on your first paycheck for it, but it should be worth it in the end.”

She blinks, blinks away Touko’s face splitting into pieces even, and just sighs. “I thought my payment was teaching me how to use these eyes. I don’t care.”

“Of course, of course, but I need something good to put down on paper or else it won’t work. Just think of the paychecks as bonuses. Your family’s rich anyways, right? Even if you’re not getting along with them right now, they’ll still help you out in some ways. Disowning you would normally be the option, but there’s no way they’d do that when you’re the best heir they’ve had in generations. In any case, I’ll work something out, and then we’ll get to your eyes. I’m going to need you to start working soon, so we’ll have to be quick.”

Touko continues talking, going on about something or other, but Shiki merely rolls around and closes her eyes. Another time maybe.

◆

A single box is the only thing delivered to the empty apartment, filled with new kimonos to accommodate for having grown out of her two-year-old ones, and is—for now at least—the only gift her family has given her after her coma.

And that suits her just fine. At least now she won’t have to go out looking for new clothes herself.

The box is set in front of the closet, the clothes to be put away at another time, as she takes a look around her new “home”. A single bed. A kitchen not three feet from it. One doorway besides the entrance that leads to a bathroom and washing machine.

A black corded telephone lying on the floor. It even already has a message of congratulations.

“ _Shiki! I heard you moved out into your own place. I’m not really sure what you’re thinking by doing this, but you know your family’s been worried, right? I’ll be coming by later today, so make sure you don’t go out. Till then._ ”

It’s a warm, familiar voice, one that she remembered with vivid clarity. One that she still understood the feelings about.

A home was a place you wanted to return to, right? She was fine with this as her new home for now.


End file.
